After apology and acquittal in similar case, East Bay man avoids jail for sex trafficking of a minor in 2006
OAKLAND — A year after he was acquitted of allegations of sex trafficking from 2019, a Bay Area man avoided additional jail time for trafficking a minor who came to Oakland from Kentucky in 2006, court records show.
Chase McMillon, 39, was sentenced Feb. 28 to time served, meaning he won’t go back to prison or jail for a conviction of sex trafficking a minor. McMillon pleaded guilty in October 2022 to trafficking a 15-year-old girl back in 2006, allegations that surfaced while authorities were investigating him for alleged sex trafficking in 2019, in Salinas.
It is a bizarre case that was litigated for years, and resulted in McMillon spending roughly 18 months behind bars awaiting trial, before he was released in April 2022. McMillon was indicted in 2020 on charges of trafficking a woman in Salinas through threats and fisticuffs, but the case fell apart. In March 2022, he was acquitted of both charges.
That left the more serious charge, alleging that McMillon trafficked a 15-year-old girl who ran away from home in Kentucky to come to Oakland. Authorities say the girl was arrested in a prostitution sting and it was later determined that a man she met on a phone chat line had paid for her to take a Greyhound bus to the Bay Area. The girl allegedly told her mother she’d been burned with an iron for not following her pimp’s directions.
The girl’s mother spoke with McMillon on the phone, who said she was “hustling to get money” and that “if she does not get straight and do what she was told her arm is going to be broke,” prosecutors said in court records. For reasons that remain unclear, though, no charges were filed against McMillon until after he’d been indicted in the 2019 case.
Prosecutors asked for McMillon to be returned to jail and serve an additional 12 months behind bars. McMillon, in a handwritten apology letter to the court, wrote that his life has dramatically changed since 2006 and that “I’m aware of my wrongs.”
“The things I’ve done are not a pleasant reflection of me; I have fully turned me from the error of my ways,” he wrote. “I’ve made a change so needed in my life that it has me working hard to help people.”
In a sentencing memo, McMillon’s lawyers wrote that since his April 2022 release, he’s found steady work and has volunteered providing services to unsheltered people in Contra Costa County. They wrote that further jail time would represent a step backwards, not forwards, to his rehabilitation.
“Research demonstrates that people become slightly more likely to reoffend after they’ve been incarcerated, for a host of reasons, including the fraying of family ties and the resulting barriers to housing, employment, and other services,” the attorneys wrote.
Despite not imposing more jail time, U.S. District Judge Jeffrey White is requiring McMillon to register as a sex offender, pay $17,500 in restitution, and be on supervised release for five years.